assets and business sold off<\/a> just before liquidators were appointed, leaving creditors staring at a hole of more than a million dollars.<\/p>\nBotterill said he had no insight into Kerry Bradburn\u2019s intentions or state of mind when conducting the sale-and-liquidation, but the company had been backed into a corner by insolvency.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she was desperate. She had very few options. She was facing court-appointed liquidators or this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Kerry]()
Kerry Bradburn, owner of Wild Poppies before its collapse into liquidation last month.<\/p>\n
Creditors also expressed surprise at the sale price, arguing it was too low.<\/p>\n
One said the sale price was a fraction of what seemed reasonable, given the company\u2019s profit-and-loss accounts showed annual revenues of nearly $6m and quarterly net profits of $125,000.<\/p>\n
Liquidators revealed the business sale was also no-money-down and they had yet to receive any proceeds, with payment said to occur over the next 12 months providing certain targets were met.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are they able to continue to trade without making a payment?\u201d one creditor asked.<\/p>\n
Last month, Bradburn acknowledged her son had taken over the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, he\u2019s related to me, but the business has been valued, it\u2019s all above board. He\u2019s paid the market price for the business. We wouldn\u2019t be stupid enough to not,\u201d she said when contacted for comment on the liquidation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing untoward that\u2019s happened,\u201c Bradburn said. \u201cIt\u2019s all legitimate, there\u2019s no problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Botterill said reversing the sale would likely need court action, which was expensive to mount and possibly damaging to the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only would it be expensive, it would be defended. Given the size of the business, it would also be uneconomic,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n
Botterill said, despite the sale being independently valued prior to the transaction, he was negotiating with Weyland to uplift the price paid. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking for about $70,000 more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The liquidators acknowledged that even if that additional sum were obtained from Weyland it would see every creditor in the room \u2013 all of whom were unsecured \u2013 receive nothing given the secured and preferential debts ranking above them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIRD are owed around $400,000 \u2013 they\u2019re likely to be the only winners here,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n
Creditors raised concerns that Weyland was operating as a phoenix company, but Grant said the new entity had different directors and shareholders and those Companies Act provisions did not come into play.<\/p>\n
Bradburn told the Herald she had no involvement \u2013 as either an employee or manager \u2013 with Weyland and defended her actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one goes into business to go broke. This is a horrible situation I wouldn\u2019t wish on anyone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Questions to Cole Bradburn and Weyland by the Herald did not receive a response.<\/p>\n
Grant said there was the possibility of referring the matter to the Registrar of Companies if Bradburn was found to be acting as a director in the new company, but warned creditors even that might not get the outcome they sought.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer behaviour here, and I know you all think it\u2019s appalling, but we have seen worse,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n
Botterill said while his administration was focused on the remnants of Wild Poppies, other action was possible with regard to Bradburn.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not off scot-free. She has a raft of personal guarantees that creditors can elect to pursue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The meeting closed with the election of a creditors\u2019 committee.<\/p>\n
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism \u2013 including twice being named Reporter of the Year \u2013 and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company also had $326,600 in accounts payable that liquidators classed as \u201cprobable claims\u201d. The only assets liquidators…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[677,17623,19092,9218,138,651,49063,17397,3936,6948,39539,12513,245301,24361,305,11551,5511,2739,12624,111,139,69,16348,1523,208671,35995,1133,22639,61,3608,15391],"class_list":["post-489115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-angry","tag-appointed","tag-assets","tag-before","tag-business","tag-close","tag-companys","tag-creditors","tag-director","tag-directors","tag-expressed","tag-failed","tag-florist","tag-florists","tag-have","tag-hours","tag-just","tag-liquidation","tag-liquidators","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outrage","tag-over","tag-poppies","tag-relative","tag-sale","tag-son","tag-to","tag-were","tag-wild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}